The present invention is directed generally to notification systems, and, more particularly, to an emergency notification system.
In today's society, there are increasing numbers of people who work at locations other than their homes. In many instances, there are young children who spend considerable amounts of time at home without adult supervision while their parents are working. Such situations can be very stressful to a working parent because of the uncertainty of knowing exactly what the unsupervised children may be doing. There are also a growing number of exactly people who have elderly parents living alone. Understandably, there are many people who, for various reasons, desire to be notified as soon as possible if an emergency call is placed from a location that concerns them.
One service that has attempted to address this desire is the family 911 notification service offered by Lucent Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, N.J. Each subscriber to the service may select up to five telephone numbers, each associated with a particular person, that they wish to be called if a 911 call is placed from a landline telephone associated with the subscriber. The selected telephone numbers may be given a priority from first to fifth and may be associated with landline telephones and/or wireless telephones. The service operates in the manner described hereinbelow.
After a 911 call has been placed from a landline telephone associated with a subscriber, the service calls the selected telephone numbers in a sequential order according to the specified priority. If the family 911 notification service reaches a live person at one of the selected telephone numbers, the service plays an announcement. The announcement informs the person that the incoming call is from the family 911 notification service and that a 911 call was placed. The announcement also informs the person as to the time that the 911 call was placed and the telephone number that the 911 call was placed from. The service stops calling the selected telephone numbers once the information has been provided to a live person. If the service has not reached a live person after all of the selected telephone numbers have been called, the service waits for five minutes before beginning to call the selected telephone numbers again. This process repeats itself for the first hour following the placement of the 911 call. During the first hour, if the service reaches an answering machine or a voice mail system at one of the selected telephone numbers, the service does not play an announcement.
If the service has not reached a live person within the first hour, the service continues to call the selected telephone numbers according to the specified priority. However, if the service reaches an answering machine or a voice mail system after the first hour, the service plays a slightly different announcement. This announcement informs the answering machine or voice mail system that the incoming call is from the family 911 notification service and that the service has been trying to reach the person associated with the selected telephone number to notify them that a 911 call has been placed. This announcement also informs the answering machine or the voice mail system as to the time that the 911 call was placed and the telephone number from which the 911 call was placed. The service stops dialing the selected telephone numbers once an announcement has been played to an answering machine or a voice mail system. If the service has not reached a live person, an answering machine, or a voice mail system within the first twenty-four hours following the placement of the 911 call, the service stops dialing the selected telephone numbers.
There are several shortcomings associated with Lucent's family 911 notification service. For example, the means used to provision the selected telephone numbers add complexity and cost to the service, the hardware used to implement the service is relatively expensive to acquire and maintain, and the service only offers oral notification that a 911 call has been placed. Thus, there exists a need for an emergency notification system that overcomes the limitations, shortcomings, and disadvantages of the emergency notification system described hereinabove.